


Face Your Fear

by BlackhurstManor



Series: Deepwatch: Malcolm [3]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Crimes & Criminals, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons References, Ex Banter, Exes, Fantasy, Gen, Gritty, No Romance, No Smut, Origin Story, Waterdeep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24543598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackhurstManor/pseuds/BlackhurstManor
Summary: The D&D group prompt this time was, of course, "face your fear."To become one of the Waterdeep Zhentarim's most fearsome enforcers, Malcolm had to cut a lot of ties along the way. But as big as it is, Waterdeep is a small place, and some of those people who got cut along the way have a way of showing up again and again.Yep, it's his ex. No one kicks the shit out of your self-image quite like someone who knows better.
Series: Deepwatch: Malcolm [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773874





	Face Your Fear

“Malcolm, you need to see the barber.”

Davil was talking sense, but Malcolm’s blood was up and it was difficult to hear him with that roaring in his ears. The little room above the tavern was quiet now – much quieter than it had been half a tick ago – and that was, in its way, deafening.

The Lackpurse Lane boys didn’t sit well with the idea of assimilating into the Zhentarim, which everyone in the room knew. Had counted on, in fact. When things went south Davil stepped back and let Malcolm go to work. At the start, there had been five men in this room. Now there were two, and three bodies dropping to room temperature.

“Malcolm,” Davil said, snapping his right-hand man out of his post-battle haze – a reverie that saw him kneeling and cutting the throats of the fallen to guarantee their expiry. “You’re cut deep.”

Malcolm looked down. The darkness of his clothes masked the spreading bloodstain at his side, but the way the jerkin stuck to his skin – that was no good. Somewhere in the fog of adrenaline, he felt a  _ tearing _ in his side.

“A barber, Malcolm,” Davil repeated, taking the man’s hand and gently pulling him back to his feet.

“Some backroom drunk’s going to make this worse, not better,” Malcolm slurred, slumping into his friend.

“Not some backroom drunk. Only one barber will do, friend.”

Malcolm sensed some hidden weight behind Davil’s casual tone, and recognition trickled down his spine like chilled fingertips.

“Davil, no,  _ absolutely n—” _

* * *

“Still doing this sort of thing, are we?”

As distractions from the pain of a needle threading through flesh go, it was lacking.

“Good to see you again, Bethany.” Malcolm’s bravado began and ended there.

Laid up as he was in the back room of his ex-girlfriend’s barber-surgeon storefront, shirtless, bleeding, she bent over him and threading him as she would a ripped dolly, there was little else to do but take the tongue lashing. It was a surprisingly large and windowless room, occupied only by a flat table to lay on, a chair to examine from, lanterns hung overhead and a table with a bowl on it to hold the tools of the trade and a blood-sopped rag. Nonetheless, it felt very small.

Malcolm thought he preferred the stabbing to the treatment.

“It does pay your bills, Beth,” Davil offered. He was leaning in the doorframe, arms crossed and smiling, enjoying the evening’s entertainment.

“I help who needs it,” Bethany responded sharply, blowing a strand of curly black hair out of her face. With a snip of her scissors, the stitch was finished. “Whether they be Zhentarim or whoever the Zhentarim is stabbing at the time.”

“Bethany, I – “ Malcolm began, then cried out when Bethany drizzled clear liquid from an unlabeled bottle over the stitches.

“That a potion?” Davil chuckled.

“Of a sort,” Bethany said, before taking a swig from the bottle herself. “Out. I need a moment with the patient.”

The elf obliged, and Bethany crossed the room to shut the door behind him. She stood there a moment to swig from the bottle, bloody fingers smearing the neck, and Malcolm was surprised anew at just how small she was. A head and a half shorter than him, at least. She was so much taller in his mind’s eye.

Malcolm put his weight into his elbows to rise, but she turned and held a finger up.

“Rest a moment,” she said curtly. The flare of her nostrils and set of her jaw brooked no resistance.  _ Gods, _ he thought.  _ Those are still the most brilliant brown eyes I’ve ever seen. Like dark cider. _

“That was a real question earlier,” Bethany said, moving to the prep table to set her bottle down and wash her hands. The water in the bowl had gone cloudy with blood. “About still doing this sort of thing for that man.”

“I’m doing what I’m good at that’s available to me,” he said, and was immediately annoyed at himself. Why did  _ he _ have to justify himself to  _ anyone? _

“What’s  _ easiest _ that you’re good at,” she corrected. Bethany wrung out the rag from the water bowl and cleaned the length of his stitched wound. Long as a finger, that. And good work done well.

“You truly are one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, Malcolm. And by far the stupidest.”

“All right, I think I’ve heard enough,” he said, moving to sit up again.

Quick as lightning she planted her palm flat on his chest and stared back at him. The gaze was less flinty, now; not quite pleading but gentler. It did the trick.

“I’m serious, you dolt,” she said, taking the seat and offering him the bottle. “That honey-haired charlatan is going to order you to waltz into the Nine Hells someday, and I suspect you won’t think twice before you do.”

“I have plans,” he said. He drank, resenting the sullen adolescence in his tone.

“ _ I _ had plans, too.”

Malcolm had nothing for that.

“Rest an hour,” Bethany clapped her hands on her thighs and stood again, all business. “Then straight to whatever lean-to you call a home and sleep overnight. No sharp movements. Barber’s orders.”

Malcolm only watched and did not speak. Every word that came to mind felt faintly obscene.

“Well,” she said, nonchalance laced with disappointment, “I’ll see you next time.”

She left him there.


End file.
